I haven't managed to finish Malcolm Gladwell's new #1 bestseller, Outliers, yet, because it's so full of snarkworthy goodness. Here's a taste from p. 80:

”What Hudson is saying is that IQ is a lot like height in basketball. Does someone who is five foot six have a realistic chance of playing professional basketball? Not really. You need to be at least six foot or six one to play on that level, and all things being equal, it’s probably better to be six two than six one, and better to be six three than six two. But past a certain point, height stops mattering so much. A player who is six foot eight is not automatically better than someone two inches shorter. (Michael Jordan, the greatest player ever, was six six after all.) A basketball player only has to be tall enough – and the same is true of intelligence.”

So that explains Yao Ming's career! See, he's at least 6'-6" — so he's over the NBA threshold ... by 11 inches, granted, but once you are over the threshold, according to The New Yorker's expert on everything, it doesn't much matter how much taller you are than 6'-6."